Amazon Software Development Engineering reviews

3.5

57% would recommend to a friend

(6,775 total reviews)
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Andrew Jassy

40% approve of CEO

54% positive business outlook

Software Development Engineering employees have rated Amazon with 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 6,775 company reviews on Glassdoor. This indicates that most Software Development Engineering professionals have a good working experience there. Amazon is rated in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) by Software Development Engineering professionals compared to other employers within the Tecnologías de la información industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

7K reviews
5.0
Feb 21, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Able to maintain a healthy work/life balance. Fun, friendly work environment. Interesting projects. Amazon is a very challenging workplace. You're expected to get things done very well and very quickly. There are a vast variety of projects, big and small, to work on to stretch your skills. You're not just interacting with other software developers, so you can use it as an opportunity to learn a lot about business in general and people skills.

Cons

Despite the long-term vision of the company executives, it seems that a lot of the lower-level managers have very short-term vision. They will cast your best laid plans asunder in favor of rushing out a completely new project in a very limited timespan so they have something to show in their regular meetings with top executives. As an SDE, you have to learn how to push back and get time to make a solid plan. Your developer as a programmer may be limited in terms of the developer tools you learn (and can use to pad your resume). Amazon uses a lot of proprietary developer tools. The on-call rotation is very frustrating and exhausting at times, but it's a necessary evil. It has driven people out of the company. But the severity of it is something that varies greatly from team to team.

4.0
Feb 6, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

challenging projects, good pay (considering RSU), talented coworkers, good place to learn, get to work in various areas (project management, planning, architect, development, maintenance, monitoring, metrics, etc etc)

Cons

lots and lots of work - i completely agree with other that there is NO work/life balance in amazon very aggressive coworkers - you need to be tough

3.0
Jan 26, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Work with different technologies, in a highly scalable environment. Not a lot of structure.

Cons

Amazon would rate significantly higher if it were located somewhere else. Unfortunately, it is located in an area that has a poor quality of life. If you are single, and unencumbered then it is not a bad place to work at all. it isn't a place to work for the long term. It's a short term gig because it is not really easy to work at Amazon and also have a life. Seattle is either crazy expensive, or just plain screwed up depending on where you choose to live. Bad government, makes a bad place to live. Amazon does it's best in a bad situation but it could definitely be much better.

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